Fredericksburg Freelance Star, Paula Felder, March 29, 2003
In March 1728, the assembly passed the act creating Fredericksburg on 50 acres of the 2,000-acre Buckner-Royston patent. Although the town was promptly laid off by a surveyor in 64 lots and a public square, Fredericksburg was basically ignored. In 1729, for lack of sales, the town nearly reverted back to its owners. Modern jokesters who install plaques making fun of historic claims could plant one for real on Fredericksburg's original 50 acres: "On this site, from 1728 until 1732, nothing happened." But then a resourceful entrepreneur and a stroke of good fortune brought Fredericksburg to life.
By 1735, Henry Willis—most appropriately dubbed "the Top Man of the Place" by William Byrd in 1732—had the future of Fredericksburg well in hand, with more plans to come.
After losing the campaign for a more central location, the justices let the construction of a permanent courthouse to Willis in 1736. Building began on the site where its replacement stands today. Meanwhile they continued to meet in his stone building on Lot 45 for several more years, for Willis as usual ran far behind schedule.
The church, which Willis also built under contract, was now holding services on its half of the public square, with its interior only partially finished. The two warehouses at the public wharf, which Henry Willis ran as owner and proprietor of the station, were already proving inadequate to hold the tobacco arriving for inspection. The justices of the court, who had jurisdiction over the facility, struggled with constant glitches generated by their fellow justice who wore too many hats.
Before the 1735 crop was accommodated, space had to be found for 335 hogsheads of tobacco outside the warehouses, a shortage of spectacular dimensions. At her coffee house and stables, Susanna Livingston rented the court space for 191 of the bulky containers weighing half a ton or more. The rest were distributed around the town.
Three more warehouses were immediately ordered by the justices, and for once, Willis did not get the contract to build them. It went instead to Francis Thornton. Willis' neglect of his local duties was probably due to his involvement in the new county of Orange, created on Spotsylvania's western boundary in August 1734. While other Spotsylvanians were bemoaning the loss of almost half of the county's population and court business to the fast-growing western area, Willis quickly capitalized on the opportunities it presented.
He obtained an appointment to the prestigious position of clerk of the court of the new county, and the designation of a house he owned on Black Rock Run as a temporary court site—even before the first court convened in 1735. It took two years, but the Orange County justices, many of whom had served with Willis in Spotsylvania, finally obtained a site of their own choosing—but they were not able to dislodge him as clerk. Although nothing remains today of his architectural achievements, Willis' handiwork is still all around us.
Widowed in 1733, Willis quickly laid siege to Mildred Washington Gregory, herself twice widowed, who was the only sister of Augustine Washington. Willis had many Gloucester County connections. His brother Francis still occupied the family home in the south of the county. Certainly it was Henry Willis who knew the Gloucester County patent owners and obtained their release in 1729, which prevented the town from disappearing. Mildred also had Gloucester County relations, including her other brother, John, with whom Willis had shared vestry duty some years earlier.
Willis' bride-to-be had such substantial assets—from her two earlier marriages and her legacy from her father—that he signed a prenuptial agreement before their marriage early in 1734. And as they had a large combined brood of children and he had no suitable estate, she was no doubt amenable to his desire to acquire some attractive land.
As it happened, Willis, the ever-adventurous entrepreneur, must already have coveted a piece of property that would further his plans. It was the eastern half of the patent on which Fredericksburg had been laid out. And since 1730, the land had been crossed by an important new road running 24 miles from the North Anna River to the Rappahannock.
The road had been built—at the county's expense—for Charles Chiswell, who was not even a county resident, to transport the products of his mines in his new venture on the North Anna to his rented wharves at Hazel Run. The county justices had turned down his request, but Chiswell had important connections in Williamsburg. He made a partner of Gov. Gooch, who simply overruled the court.
We would certainly not be amiss in thinking that Willis' bride, who had ready cash, was willing to finance this acquisition for her new husband, for the high hill near the town on the property would make an excellent setting for her handsome furnishings.
Not long after their marriage, Willis traveled to Gloucester County and purchased Richard Buckner's half of the patent. Though the deed is among that county's lost records, fortunately for us the property division agreed upon was recorded in Spotsylvania Court in October 1735 by the surveyor George Home. Each owner received 929 acres.
This division line, executed on a crude plat, would influence the growth of Fredericksburg's 19th-century neighborhoods, most of which are still recognizable today. Chiswell's road, much of which we know as State Route 208, crossed Spotswood's mine road to his Massaponax wharves at today's Hood Drive (the original location of "Four-Mile Fork") and continued on toward Hazel Run. Spotsylvanians had been very uncooperative in building the lower bridges, and Chiswell no doubt wished to avoid more trouble and expense. He veered off near present-day Summit Street and skirted the run.
However unpopular Chiswell's road was with the Spotsylvanians who had been pressed into building it, the road has proved to be an indispensable north-south artery for almost three centuries. Willis was quick to capitalize on the opportunity presented by his new acquisition. He built a fork off the road and continued it through his new property, rounding the commanding hill and then following his new property line into the back of town. In the neighborhood articles to come, it is important to remember that the lands on either side of this 1735 division line have distinctly different histories. For example, the Brompton and Willis Hill plantations are on opposite sides of the line. Kirkland Street and parts of Hanover are on the path of the line. Liberty Town backs up to the line (now an alley, much modified).
The road was called simply the County Road, and later the Road to the Courthouse. (We know a portion of it today as Sunken Road, the name that it acquired during the Civil War Battle of Fredericksburg.) It was the major link between county and town far into the 19th century. It predates Lafayette Boulevard, a town street first called Prussia, which was extended piecemeal, finally linking up with the County Road at the entrance to the National Cemetery. After he purchased the 929-acre tract and built his road, Willis created inducements to attract visitors. He laid off a racecourse on the back line of the town.
As part of his purchase, Willis also acquired two lots at the corner of William and Caroline streets that had been awarded to Richard Buckner as compensation for the loss of his riverfront. There Willis established John Gordon, the former tavern keeper from Germanna, in his own tavern. Spotsylvanians now came into town to sample its entertainments, buy the wares in the shops, do business at court and enjoy the twice-yearly fairs authorized by the Virginia Assembly in 1738.
Willis was in the midst of other ambitious plans for the town when he had a brief warning of a mortal illness. In May 1740, Mildred Willis took the precaution of making a deed of gift to her 5-year-old son, Lewis, conveying all the goods belonging to her by the prenuptial agreement. (She was still a wealthy woman in her own right.) Willis traveled to Williamsburg to attend the assembly, where he accepted key committee assignments, returning in mid-June. But in July, he executed his will.
The August session at Spotsylvania court was one of the most bizarre in the history of Fredericksburg. Henry Willis bought up one fourth of the town—17 lots in all. (There were actually 20 lots still unsold, which attests to the sparseness of the population.) On Aug. 5, he spent an entire day recording his purchases. As the law (already much bent) prohibited him from owning more than two lots, the other trustees acted as willing colleagues in his charade, witnessing "deeds" with invented prior owners as lot conveyors. Some were at least plausible; some were long-gone residents; and some were unidentifiable. The most fanciful "conveyor" of all was the governor, William Gooch.
Willis then spent the last five weeks of his life supervising the development of his new properties. After his death in September, his executors worked quickly to prepare his assets for sale. They completed a large tavern on Caroline Street in the courthouse block, originally called the Race Horse Tavern, later the Long Ordinary.
The public auction in June 1741 on court day brought in almost 800 pounds and apparently cleared him of debt. Willis left several town lots to his children and his remaining asset, the tract he had acquired from Richard Buckner, to his wife. At first, there was no effect on the town's economy. Lot prices stayed depressed and there was no noticeable increase in transactions. But the foundation for growth had been laid and new arrivals, especially the Scottish merchants, were canny entrepreneurs who would soon capitalize on their acquisitions from his estate. Perhaps Henry Willis' most significant contribution to Fredericksburg's history has been overlooked. After his marriage to Mildred Washington Willis in 1734, it was surely he, with his expansive personality and great enthusiasm, who persuaded his new brother-in-law, Augustine Washington, to settle nearby.
The estate that Washington bought in 1738 had belonged to William Strother, a lawyer and something of an entrepreneur himself, representing British mining companies acquiring mineral rights. He had also been a proprietor of the Falmouth inspection station. When his widow remarried and moved away, she left behind a farm in good working order. Though they had gone separate ways, there was a close bond between Augustine Washington and his sister, Mildred; they had grown up together in the Chotank home of their father's executor and cousin, John Washington.
In 1726, Mildred had sold Augustine a 2,500-acre tract on Little Hunting Creek willed to her by their father. In 1732, she was godmother to her infant nephew George, the first son of Augustine's second marriage. Through this marriage, to Mary Ball in 1731, Augustine acquired 600 valuable acres that his new wife had inherited adjoining his mining venture on Accokeek Creek in Stafford County. This acquisition had expanded his opportunity for profitable participation in the business and may have been the reason he relocated his family in 1735 from the farm at Pope's Creek to the Hunting Creek tract.
Then in 1738, on a trip to England, Washington increased his ownership share in the Principio company; this would require more of his presence at the mine. Soon after his return, William Strother's farm came onto the market, and it probably did not take much persuasion from Willis to attract Washington to the November auction. Its purchase in December afforded him an opportunity to be reunited with his sister and at the same time to acquire a working farm not far from his business and conveniently located near the town.
Neither Augustine Washington nor Henry Willis was cut from the traditional mold of the planter class. They were both mobile entrepreneurs, willing to take risks. Although their relationship was brief, they shared close family ties and interests.
At Willis' estate sale in 1741, Augustine purchased two lots. In all, he and his son Lawrence acquired five of the town's 64 lots between 1739 and 1742. In the years after his death in 1743, two of his children and eventually his widow became town residents.
© 1993-2008 Helen Glenn Court | All rights reserved